use-focus-trap 🔁

React hook that traps focus within a DOM element. Gives you full control of rendering the container and the triggering element.

Overview

Sometimes when you're building complex UIs you'll need to make sure that user focus stays within a certain element. For example, when you have a modal, you want to keep the user from exiting the modal when they press Tab / Shift + Tab.

This React hook allows you to create a focus trap and attach it to any DOM element.

When the focus trap is enabled, it will:

• Automatically focus the first focusable element within the trap.
• Set focus to the first focusable element when pressing Tab on the last item in the trap.
• Set focus to the last focusable element when pressing Shift + Tab on the first item in the trap.
• Return focus to the trigger element when closing the trap (with some configuration)

Install

npm install @benjamminj/use-focus-trap

Or, if you prefer yarn:

yarn add @benjamminj/use-focus-trap

Usage

Default usage

By default, useFocusTrap will trap any incoming tab events after it is rendered.

import { useFocusTrap } from '@benjamminj/use-focus-trap';

const App = () => {
  const focusTrapRef = useFocusTrap();

  return (
    <div>
      {/* Focus will be trapped inside of this div */}
      <div ref={focusTrapRef}>
        <button>item #1</button>
        <button>item #2</button>
        <button>item #3</button>
      </div>

      {/* This button will not receive focus while the trap is active */}
      <button>outside!</button>
    </div>
  );
};

Manually toggling the trap on/off

You can also manually control whether the focus trap is enabled or disabled.

import { useFocusTrap } from '@benjamminj/use-focus-trap';

const App = () => {
  const [isEnabled, setIsEnabled] = useState(false);
  const focusTrapRef = useFocusTrap({ enabled: isEnabled });
  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={() => setIsEnabled(true)}>enable</button>

      <div></div>
    </div>
  );
};

Returning focus to a trigger element when the trap closes

You can have the trap automatically shift focus to an element of your choosing upon closing the trap.

import { useFocusTrap } from '@benjamminj/use-focus-trap';

const App = () => {
  const [isEnabled, setIsEnabled] = useState(false);
  const triggerRef = useRef(null);
  const focusTrapRef = useFocusTrap({
    enabled: isEnabled,
    trigger: triggerRef,
  });

  return (
    <div>
      <button onClick={() => setIsEnabled(true)} ref={triggerRef}>
        enable
      </button>

      <div ref={focusTrapRef}>
        <button>inner 1</button>
        <button>inner 2</button>
      </div>
    </div>
  );
};

TypeScript

useFocusTrap is written in TypeScript and accepts 1 generic parameter. You can use this to customize the type of ref that the hook returns.

const App = () => {
  const focusTrapRef = useFocusTrap<HTMLDivElement>();
  return (
    <div>
      <div ref={focusTrapRef}>
        <button>inside trap 1</button>
        <button>inside trap 2</button>
      </div>
      <button>outside</button>
    </div>
  );
};

Contributing

Any PRs and issues are welcome!